ON

THE VERGE

By Dr. Mel Waldman

(upon viewing John Marin’s exhibit

On the Verge of Wilderness

at

the Ogunquit Museum of American Art

OMAA

&

reading

his

1914

letter

to

Alfred Stieglitz)

~~~~~~~~~~

On the verge

of

something real

like

the efflorescence of ethereal love

in

the everflowing landscape

& the eerie sea

& the ephemeral sky

swirling

through a turquoise veil

diaphanous & divine

invisible

spheres of holy light

blossoming & burgeoning

glowing gloriously

within

the multicolored flowers

& fruits

&

flowing majestically

within

the sprawling solitude

of

the numinous moment

always

becoming & seeking

visibility

love seeking love

On the verge

of

something beautiful

like

spirals of light

sailing

upward

shooting stars

Heaven-bound

blooming

within wild blueberries

&

strawberries

&

dancing with seagulls

on

the rocks

outside

Jackie’s Too

in

Perkins Cove

&

darting & flitting

along

the Marginal Way

on

celestial cliffs

adorned

with wild roses

red, pink, & white

Rosa rugosa

blessing

earthly travelers

with

otherworldly visions

soothing

swirls & spirals

bathed

in opalescence

pirouetting

across the vastness

of

the sea

&

sensuous hypnotic sounds

rolling

rushing waves

crashing

into bestial rocks sacred cliffs

crushing

the chaos-serenity of ineffable beauty

beatific panorama

whirling seascape

in luscious luminescence

unbearable holy light

soaring in the kaleidoscopic sky

wild waves

dancing within a delirious dreamscape

whorling

into the red sun

&

galloping into the gorgeous sunset

intoxicating

hallucinatory vista

On the verge

of

haunting transcendence

in

search of the Source

On the verge

of

miracles everywhere

merging

with the Universal Mind

On the Verge of Wilderness

&

love seeking love

On the verge

of

Creation

---

I

COME

FROM

A STRANGE UNKNOWABLE PLACE

By Dr. Mel Waldman

~~~~~~~~~~

I

come from a strange unknowable place

a

selcouth Un-Being

the

land of no-land

the

sea of no-sea

the

sky of no-sky

I

come from the unfathomable nothingness

the

no-place of no-time

creation ex nihilo

&

I am

the

beautiful image of the Ultimate Nothingness

&

still, I wear the mask of grotesquerie

&

the everlasting imprint of trauma

for

I am

the

savage image of my trauma

I am

I

wear the shroud of suffering

the

shock & upheaval of my battered being

I am

my trauma that sleeps in the bestial Abyss & awakens as my Identity

I am Trauma

&

yet, an otherworldly voice within-a turquoise gem-

sits

in a circle of celestial opalescence & sings of transcendence

for

I am also the Transcendence of Trauma

I

come from a strange unknowable place

creation ex nihilo

&

I am

the

beautiful image of the Ultimate Nothingness

---

INSIDE

THE PSYCHOTIC HOUR

By Dr. Mel Waldman

~~~~~~~~~~

Swirling

around the rim of madness

inside

the psychotic hour

I

sail across your sacred center

an

oval omphalos into your mind

passing

through the membrane of your unfathomable universe

joining you

in the convex mirror of your being

&

inside the psychotic hour

I

rush slowly through phantasmagoria

the

whirling wilderness of your bestial brain

merciless

to your mutilated self

&

listen to your ethereal visions  of eerie anguish

in

the harrowing Hieronymus Bosch landscape adorned with Dali heavens

above

the deep delirious earth & Dante’s demonic House of Fire

&

inside the psychotic hour

I

witness the cacophonous music of trauma

a

cornucopia of  graveyard colors shrieking chaos

4

apocalyptic horses otherworldly stallions colored white, red, black, & pale

galloping

into the Stygian crypt the black night of the broken battered brain

plummeting

into the obsidian abyss of obliteration

&

inside the psychotic hour

I

am one with you in the seething summer of molten sorrow/madness

therapist

& patient swirling/whirling in the cauldron of August agony

waiting

for the end of summer/suffering

looking

through the convex mirror of your being in the Healing Room

---

MEL WALDMAN, PH. D.

Bio:

Dr. Mel Waldman is a psychologist, poet, and writer whose stories have appeared in numerous magazines including HARDBOILED DETECTIVE, ESPIONAGE, THE SAINT, PULP METAL MAGAZINE, and AUDIENCE. His poems have been widely published in magazines and books including INDIANA VOICE JOURNAL, LIQUID IMAGINATION, THE BROOKLYN LITERARY REVIEW, BRICKPLIGHT, SKIVE MAGAZINE, ODDBALL MAGAZINE, POETRY PACIFIC, POETICA, RED FEZ, SQUAWK BACK, SWEET ANNIE & SWEET PEA REVIEW, THE JEWISH LITERARY JOURNAL, THE JEWISH PRESS, THE JERUSALEM POST, HOTMETAL PRESS, MAD SWIRL, HAGGARD & HALLOO, ASCENT ASPIRATIONS, YELLOW MAMA, and NAMASTE FIJI: THE INTERNATIONAL ANTHOLOGY OF POETRY.  A past winner of the literary GRADIVA AWARD in Psychoanalysis, he was nominated for a PUSHCART PRIZE in literature and is the author of 11 books.

Published posts on Two Drops of Ink:

1) Poetry Break: By Mel Waldman, Ph.D.

---

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